Jeff Bluestone is the President and Chief Executive Officer of Sonoma Biotherapeutics and the A.W. and Mary Margaret Clausen Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the Diabetes Center of The University of California, San Francisco. Bluestone is a highly accomplished scientific researcher and international leader in the field of immunotherapy and has published more than 500 papers over nearly four decades focused on understanding the basic processes that control T-cell activation and immune tolerance in autoimmunity, organ transplantation and cancer. His research has led to the development and commercialization of multiple immunotherapies, including the first FDA-approved drug targeting T-cell costimulation to treat autoimmune disease and organ transplantation and the first FDA-approved CTLA-4 antagonist drugs for the treatment of metastatic melanoma. He was part of the team of early developers of a novel anti-CD3 monoclonal antibody, now called teplizumab, a pro-tolerogenic drug that has shown clinical activity in type 1 diabetes, psoriatic arthritis, and the reversal of kidney transplant rejection. In addition to his research, Bluestone was the founding director of the Immune Tolerance Network, the largest NIH-funded multicenter clinical immunology research program, testing novel immunotherapies in transplantation, autoimmunity, and asthma/allergy. He recently led the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy as president and CEO. He served as a member of the Blue Ribbon Panel, a board of scientific experts appointed by then Vice President Joe Biden to guide the NCI Cancer Moonshot Research Initiative. He was also the Ludwig Professor and director of the Ben May Institute at The University of Chicago and served as a senior investigator at the NCI. Bluestone holds a BS and an MS from Rutgers University and a PhD in immunology from the Weill Cornell Graduate School of Medical Sciences. Alix Ventures, by way of BIOS Community, is providing this content for general information purposes only. Reference to any specific product or entity does not constitute an endorsement nor recommendation by Alix Ventures, BIOS Community, or its affiliates. The views & opinions expressed by guests are their own & their appearance on the program does not imply an endorsement of them nor any entity they represent. Views & opinions expressed by Alix Ventures employees are those of the employees & do not necessarily reflect the view of Alix Ventures, BIOS Community, affiliates, nor its content sponsors. Thank you for listening! BIOS (@BIOS_Community) unites a community of Life Science innovators dedicated to driving patient impact. Alix Ventures (@AlixVentures) is a San Francisco based venture capital firm supporting early stage Life Science startups engineering biology to create radical advances in human health. Music: Danger Storm by Kevin MacLeod (link & license)